Turn videos into marketing machines with these analytics

Entrepreneurs trying to figure out social media often focus on the primarily text-based sites, Facebook and Twitter. But with more people spending more time watching online video, you have to start thinking of YouTube as a key marketing and relationship-building platform. Especially when you understand how to use the detailed analytics available to YouTube content providers.

Consider the numbers. According to a recent comScore study, 178 million Americans — or more than 50% of the population — watched 33 billion online videos in February, 2013. That’s nearly 200 videos each in a single month. ComScore says 150 million of those viewers accessed videos through a Google site (which basically means YouTube).

Mark Hayes, who heads up public relations for Ottawa-based ecommerce hosting company Shopify, notes that YouTube is more than a home to cute cat videos; it’s also the world’s second-biggest search engine. In a recent blog post, he offered 10 ways that fledgling video marketers can monitor the performance of their videos in order to make their campaigns as efficient as possible.

While Hayes’ post is primarily aimed at small retailers, who comprise most of Shopify’s clientele, it should also interest any entrepreneur or marketer who wants to crack the code of online video. Here are five key analytics that Hayes says can help you learn what you’re doing right, and fix what’s going wrong.

1. Monitor views over time.

The fundamental metric to follow when gauging your content’s success is the number of views your videos are getting. To find out, sign into YouTube and click on the “Views Reports” section. The site’s analytics panel will tell you how many views each of your videos has garnered. By comparing the numbers for different videos, you can easily determine which have attracted the biggest audiences, and figure out what subjects or “tone” appeal most to your viewers.

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In analyzing your videos’ reach, “it’s vital that you figure out just where your viewers are coming from,” says Hayes. Under the “Traffic Sources” page on your YouTube Analytics panel, you can view graphs displaying your most significant sources of traffic, along with the total viewers per source. This helps you understand how viewers are finding your videos.

Using actual Shopify analytics as an example, Hayes points out how your top traffic may come from embedded players, mobile apps, YouTube searches, YouTube “suggested videos,” external websites, and Google searches, or many other sources. Shopify’s results indicate that its own “front and centre” homepage videos are generating lots of traffic. But Hayes spots one problem: “Disappointingly, you can see that less than 1% of Shopify’s YouTube views come from Google search, so this tells us that we should better optimize our videos for Google.”

3.Determine audience demographics.

The “Demographics” page of your YouTube analytics can give you a deeper appreciation of your audience makeup, helping you fine-tune your content to reach the demographics you want. “The interactive pie-chart and graph allow you to visualize exactly who your product videos are already targeting,” says Hayes. For instance, the analytics reveal that in the previous 30 days, 68.1% of the audience for Shopify’s videos were male, primarily aged 35 to 54. Says Hayes: “Reviewing your video demographics will help you to achieve the audience you desire, and will alert you when you begin targeting the wrong demographics..”

4.Analyze audience retention.

“Monitoring your views over time is important, but evaluating the quality of your views is paramount.,” says Hayes. Your “Audience Retention” page displays the exact times on your videos when people stopped watching. “Using this information, you can discover the weaknesses in your video content, thus preventing the same mistakes in the future.”

Remember: online users have short attention spans. Hayes notes that one Shopify video, which runs five minutes and six seconds, had an average “view duration” of two minutes and 53 seconds — or just over half. “This might seem bad,” he notes, “but it’s actually considered slightly above average.”

5. Study social share.

The essence of today’s social media is interactivity between social-media sites. The best content on YouTube is “liked” on Facebook and tweeted on Twitter. “Always be aware of who is sharing your content, and how,” says Hayes.

The “Sharing” page on YouTube Analytics tells you the number of “shares” your videos have received over time. You can view the shares for each video by social platform, date and geographical region. “Understanding your brand’s social status on each major social networking website will allow you to take relevant action to expand your position within each one,” advises Hayes.

Shopify’s own analytics reveal it is big on Facebook and Twitter. But the numbers indicate Shopify has more to do to up its presence on sites such as Google+, Blogger.com, orkut, tumbler, and LinkedIn.

Reviewing your analytics is the “secret sauce” of any online campaign. Yes, it means more work, but it gives you deep insights that will make your job easier in the long run.